With the instinct of order which formed one of his chief characteristics Airy carefully preserved a copy of every printed Paper of his own composition. These were regularly bound in large quarto volumes, and they are in themselves a striking proof of his wonderful diligence. The bound volumes are 14 in number, and they occupy a space of 2 ft. 6 in. on a shelf. They contain 518 Papers, a list of which is appended, and they form such an important part of his life's work, that his biography would be very incomplete without a reference to them.

He was very careful in selecting the channels for the publication of his Papers. Most of the early Papers were published in the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, but several of the most important, such as his Paper “On an inequality of long period in the motions of the Earth and Venus,” were published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and others, such as the articles on “The Figure of the Earth,” “Gravitation,” “Tides and Waves,” &c, were published in Encyclopaedias. After his removal to Greenwich nearly all his Papers on scientific subjects (except astronomy), such as Tides, Magnetism, Correction of the Compass, &c, &c, were communicated to the Royal Society, and were published in the Philosophical Transactions. But everything astronomical was reserved for the Royal Astronomical Society.